let's wrap it with things that made you go hmm. amazon said it sold 26.5 million items on cyber monday. breaking it down, that is 306 items per second. internet retailer also says the kindle fire hd has been the best selling, most gifted and most wished for product since its debut 15 weeks ago. amazon customers bought enough copies of "fifty shades of grey" to stack them 445 times the height of the space needle. we didn't pick that for the shape for the reference to the book. have a wonderful day, everybody. "closing bell" is next. hopes of a last-minute deal helping stocks to reverse course. coming right off the lows.

welcome "closing bell," everybody. really important last hour of trade. i'm mandy drury in for maria bartiromo. >> i'm bill griffith. the dow erasing half of its losses following word that the house is scheduled now to reconvene sunday evening, and, of course, that's helping to spark a turnaround on wall street. the guess is that maybe they will have something to talk about by that time. maybe they will have a deal to vote on, but we're not going to get ahead of ourselves right now. the dow down 70 points and was down 140, something in the lows. now at 13,044. yes, we were below 13,000 for a time. the nasdaq is down 17 now at 2973. and the s&p 500 index is down eight points right now at 1411. so the tax cuts and spending cuts, there's fear of another u.s. debt downgrade by the major rating agencies. >> will that happen, and will it derail any hopes of a real economic recovery? in today's "closing bell" exchange lee munson and jared

bernstein, cnbc contributor and former chief economist under vice president joe biden. we'll hopefully get andrew in a second, and we also have rick santelli who joins us as always at this time. gentlemen, fantastic to have you with us. lee, on this news it seems as if the market is getting its hopes up. personally i feel i will believe it when i see it. would you agree? >> yeah. you should wait until this is actually the ink is dried. here's one thing that's really changed in sentiment over the last week, mandy. last week everybody was talking about having this deal baked into the bryce price. now all of a sudden, as if some miracles happened, traders are actually talking about buying more puts and putting on more hedges. i can tell investors out there that it doesn't matter if december 31st we have a deal or if it goes a few weeks in january. all we need to know sunday night, monday morning is that they are working on a deal, and they are still at table. outside of that everything is just noise. >> jared, you know washington very, very well. we've been trying to read the

tea leaves today. harry reid was out with a twitter -- a tweet early on, and then they were scheduling a news conference that. got cancelled. it got moved. now suddenly we're hearing that the house is he convening. what do you make of all the tea leaves we're reading right now? >> it's extremely chaotic and reminds me of the arguments between my two young daughters as to who is going to empty the dishwasher, except there's 500 billion in negative fiscal impulse in play here. i thought lee put it very well. the issue at this point, seems to me, i mean, it ain't over till we're over, but it seems to me is this going to be a chaotic cliff dive or more of a bungee jump wherein there does seem to be the makings of a deal. as i've described on our show before, there are technical matters that actually make it easier for republicans to support a compromise deal like the president's last offer after we go over. >> wait a minute. you don't necessarily see any of the developments today as

progress per se? >> no, i don't. in fact, if you actually listened theord the thoeks are s saying to each oh, we're here but not willing to talk to each other about anything substantive, and it's also very difficult for me to imagine any new kind of offer or plan coming into the mix that could be absorbed in a matter of days so base include all the offers are on the table and i don't see a clear political path to any one of them prior to going over the cliff. >> you know, rick santelli, i love this country. i chose to move to this country, but i'm getting very frustrated with the leaders of this country. >> welcome to america. >> they are teaching us fiscal irresponsibility. want us to pay our mortgage on time, pay our taxes on time when they seem to not be able to do anything on time themselves. >> well, that's a softball for you, rick. >> and the entire argument that, you know, the wealthy, they don't mind. they vote for higher taxes. they don't spend the money anyway. tell that to all the cottage

industries, people that help with housework, watch the kids, vacations, airlines, i don't buy into it. i think that's one of the reasons stocks act the way they do. i'll tell you. i have a different slant on this. i'm not a big scott brown follower. i think he's a little different, in my book, but that tweet he sent where the president made the gop a deal and he was jumping on a plane and all of a sudden the white house denied it's true and now we see that the house of representatives, for no apparent tangible reason, going to be back in session on sunday, i personally think scott brown tweeted something he wasn't supposed to. i think there is movement there, and i think maybe his tweet offers us a clue, even though nobody want to acknowledge the characters in kabuki theser. >> isn't that interesting. andrew, it all comes as the volatility index, the fear indicator in the market has been rising. we were back in yellow black territory, above 20 for the first time since july. which would mean that the market was actually getting sweaty palms here, don't you think?

>> yeah. it's getting pretty chaotic. the interesting thing to me is you look at the volume. the volume is extremely low. look at a stock like apple. shares 20 million shares in a day. today half the volume. traded 10 million shares. came out and said the house would meet on sunday. the market rallied to the upside this. reminds me of a different scenario. not going to use the dishwasher one. it will remind me of greece. greece is getting bailed out. and going on back and forth. will there be a deal by december 31st? i don't think so, but if a deal gets penned out by mid-january, we can look forward to focusing on earnings and get this fiscal cliff over with so we can see what's going on important in the world, and that's earnings. >> let me -- can i comment on that? >> yeah, sure. >> i want to comment on rick santelli's optimistic view that maybe there really is a deal in the offing. he has a point, you know. it's not over, you know, until it's over and these guys do sometimes come up with last-minute deals, but i want to be very clear. in order for that to happen john boehner basically has to agree

that he's going to get a deal out of house with majority democrat votes, and i don't see why he does that before january 3rd. >> you're assuming the president has all the leverage, and i think the president would have a horrible legacy starting out with such turmoil, so i disagree. i think there's movement on the white house side on entitlements. >> rick, you do have to accept the fact that john boehner -- goes for the deal with democratic votes. >> he's about as acrimonious and able to get a deal done as sir harry reid. >> jared -- >> bottom lines, look at the vix, at 20, barely into anything. the market is clearly saying it doesn't care. hey, listen. i run my clients' money looking at the vix with my left eye, but 20, give me a break. you've got to thrill me above 30, above 35 before any of this has anything other than very interesting. >> if we get a deal, say sunday night we get a deal, right, do the markets rally, or does it

depend on what the deal consists of? >> secretly, they are going to sell off on the news. don't tell the general public that, but as soon as we get a deal, everybody is going to sell off on the news because they bought on the rumor. that's your opportunity to get in there and buy. >> that reminds me of the story when john kennedy announced his brother for attorney general the joke was he walked out at 2:00 in the morning and just yelled -- whispered it's bobby and then walked back inside. anyway, jared, i want to pursue this line reasoning with you and rick santelli some more. what would the president be able to offer that would bring more republicans into the fold on the house vote here, do you think? >> i don't think that the president is going to offer anything particularly new. >> got to offer something, don't you think? >> i think what we'll offer is a $250 threshold on the taxes, extended unemployment insurance, kick the sequester down the road and patch the amt and what we call the doc fix, the medicare piece of this. >> is that going to be enough? >> rick, does that bring the republicans into the fold for john bainer? >> once again, i'm not going to

argue about the small but important piece. i think in order to make this happen in the house he needs to go to the other side of the discussion and bring some real potential reform in entitlement reform to the table. obviously they can't get it done in 72 hours. >> correct. >> but there needs to be at least a 1.5 to 2.5-1 spending cuts to taxes and that's where the movement has to be. >> rick is talking about what we talk about a grand bargain, tax reform, entitlement reform, absolutely no way that happens before the end of the year but i'm in sync with some of the other folks who say whether we go over and it's more kind of a bungee jump where a deal is in the making at the time that we go over the cliff, that's actually a very big difference between that and a real chaotic cliff dive so that's what i'd be looking for at this point. >> framework of some kind, not a grabb grand bargain. >> correct. >> keep your fingers crossed. >> fingers, tower, and everything else. at the moment we're sitting at

13,061. dropped below 13,000 earlier on in the day, but obviously we've come off those lows on the hopes of something getting done as they reconvene on sunday night. >> big comeback here in the last hour. one bright spot on today's downturn. consumer discretionary stocks, hot with a few doubling in value. two of wall street's top money pros up next on which ones will do well in the year ahead and coming up maryland congressman andy harris who says he would vote against any revenue hikes that are not paired with spending cuts ten times as large. really? >> and after the bell rings, outgoing texas senator churchka bailey hutchison here with us. that should be very interesting. you're watching cnbc, first in business worl don't go anywhere. it's getting real interesting. stamps.com is the best.

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all right. stocks well off the lows of the day. speaking of bright spots, consumer discretionary is the second best performing sector of the year. i know you want to know what number one was. mandy knows but is not telling us. consumer discretionary is up 20% and within that sector stocks like whirlpool and expedia making the top of the list. heading into the new year, we're wondering which consumer discretionary stocks may be the winners and losers for 2013. >> good question. great to have you both on the show. dana, retailers saw the weakest holiday sales since 2008. a lot of things being thrown at the american consumer, the tragedy in connecticut, sandy, fiscal cliff, everything. with that in mind where do you see consumer spending, consumer discretionary spending next year? >> i think in 2013 there's always a place that excels in consumer discretionary and it's based on product, price and

where they can expand in terms of channel extension. in 2013 i think we'll see names like nordstrom where they are accelerating the rate of growth. i think we'll see urban outfitters continue their turnaround, perhaps in an accelerated pace in 2013, and i think you're going to continue to see, particularly in the first half of the year, the demand for products from michael kors do well. second half of the year is a different story and perhaps the turnaround of tiffany's to be the name for the second half. >> meantime, r.j., i think you would agree retail remembers scrambling right now because consumer confidence is plunging. three reports in a row that have been pretty dismal. >> yeah, i would agree. i think we're looking for a bit of a pullback in 2013, not only due to the fiscal cliff issues that will become more aware, especially when we see january paychecks hit, but we've had a great three-year run in consumer discretionaries so we think there's a bit of a pullback in store for 2013. as a result, we like the guys who can bring the lowest cost to the consumers at any given times, names like costco, names

like amazon. >> i'm going to play the devil's advocate here for a second because we're always told never doubt the power of the american consumer. is it possible, is it possible that when people see their paychecks going down because of higher taxes next year, they will still spend what they want to spend, spend the same amount? might save less and put less in their 401(k)s, for example. >> we did see a bit of that after the last recession. there's a chance that happens. i do think there's a chance dollar stores continue on a fairly good pace. a lot of the fiscal cliff issues, you know, that's putting money or if that goes over the cliff, a lot of the money that the low-end consumer has, they won't have anymore, and they won't have the government assistance programs to rely on. may not have the same effect we saw in the last recession. >> the ultimate consumer discretionary stocks, it occurs to me, dana, would be the luxury retailers like a tiffany which have suffered here recently. they in the past have been immune to a lot of vagaries of the consumer and the economy, but that hasn't been the case this time around.

what happened? >> i think tiffany's a little bit different than some of the other luxury goods company. tiffany overall is working on its product, silver business which is a high margin category. didn't have enough novelty and newness in it and hopefully that's something they can fix for next year. >> wasn't just me then? >> not just you. >> exactly. >> i noticed that, yeah. >> dana on that point, the companies for stocks like tiffany's, what about aptitude in places like china in. >> overall when we see what's happening in china, so many new brands emerged in china, new companies on the luxury good fronts, and you've had the big conglomerates vogue down their rate and new store openings. watch profitability for luxury companies in 2013. >> okay. r.j., break it down. who do you like for next year? >> in addition to costco and amazon, i like some of the late cycle discretionary plays especially when we see the housing market improve, names like william sonoma and home depot, names that did a great

job investing in the supply change, a name like american eagle stands out in that regard. those are probably our top picks heading into 2013. >> jay, what would you avoid? >> anything that's a commoditized retailer. you'll get killed by amazon and other low-cost providers, names like best buy, barnes & noble, any of the office guys. i think most of those names are dead in the water right now and definitely names to avoid at this point. >> dana, any names we missed from you? >> i think you got the names. the key thing for 2013, we need the stability, and we need some decisive actions in order to get the consumer comfortable again. >> absolutely. dana, r.j., thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> heading towards close. just joined us, the market was down sharply early on, and just in the last hour we got word that the house will come back to reconvene sunday evening. read into that whatever you want. the market is hoping that it means maybe we get a deal before the end of the year.

we're down just 65 points on the dow industrials. >> you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. >> they are leading right now. >> that's what happens. >> in the meantime, should investors pick up or head up on nokia? new windows phone, ditch the stock and step up and apple, got the trade for you coming up next. >> and later congressman andy harris joins us fresh off a conference call with republican house leaders. find out what they had to say. do we read anything into this meeting coming up on sunday night and what he thinks about the odds of avoiding the fiscal cliff. that should be very interesting coming up. >> before the break, let's check out what this ceo from milwaukee thinks about the impending fiscal crisis. >> my name is rich moussen. i'm the president and ceo of badger meters. we have about 1,400 employees around the world. the fiscal cliff is scary and

should be scary. another recession. higher unemployment. economic slowdown. tax money taken out of the economy. those are major concerns. we're going to have to react as a business and it could result in cutbacks. the fiscal cliff was meant to be something that nobody wanted to go anywhere near, and here we are about to go off it. we really need our elected officials to figure this out. come up with a reasonable compromise that keeps our economy growing and gives us some certain about the future so we can make our plans as business leaders.

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fiscal cliff fears pushing stocks lower but we're well off those lows right now and news that the house will reconvene on sunday evening at 6:30 p.m. eastern time. let's get to seemor, modi with more on this. >> hi, mandy, off of our lows, but today a risk-off approach to trading. that's a strategy being used as wall street is waiting by for the latest on the fiscal cliff negotiations. interestingly enough when you look at the year-to-date performance of the major indices, the nasdaq is the outperformer, however. for q4, just this last quarter, the nasdaq is the worst performing major index. some is down about half a percent today. lastly, one of the bright spots in the online travel space that i want to point your attention to, expedia.com. no major news hepthelping lift the stock. however, traders telling me that technically the stock looks

strong. even on twitter you'll see that there are a lot of traders tweeting about this stock, up about 3 president 6%. bill? >> all right. seema, thank you very much. meantime, nokia's shares lower -- they were early on by more than a percent and a half. may have come off those lows with the rest of the market. the dow down just 20 point. nokia's report comes amid reports that the new phones running on microsoft software are already being sold at a discount. is it a sign that the windows 8 phone is already dead, and if so, should you buy apple instead? let's talk about that talking numbers. on the technical side abigail doolittle, equity strategist and jeff kilberg, our founder and ceo at kkm financial. good to see you both. welcome. abigail, you've been bearish on apple for a while. does it mean you like nokia instead? tell us what you think. >> apple continues to look very bearish to me. it's trading in a confirmed double top. this pattern has been confirmed for more than a week now. it's careying a target of 353 so

apple could actually tumble another 30% from here. supporting that double top, the fact that it's a very reliable pattern once confirm. a recent death cross suggests that the selling momentum has increased. plus, there are unfilled caps, gaps, down near 331 and 431, excuse me and 386. overall i think that app continues to look very strong on the downside target. nokia, on the other hand, is trading on the inverse of that entire pattern setup. trading in a confirmed double bottom this. pattern has been confirmed for almost a month now. the target is 515 so 30% potential upside from current levels. nice golden cross. plus, there's an unfilled gap at 5. so overall nokia, at least for the near to medium term, looks bullish to me, while, again, apple looks bearish. >> what do you think, jeff? >> abigail, i disagree with both. you laid it out nice technically. nokia has thrown the hail mary pass.

this is not a doug flutie hail mary pass. they are late to the game. just gotten knocked off the pedestal last week as the number one mobile provider but they deeply discounted the phone. squeezing the margins down, too late and too little. back to apple. a gail, one thing you're forgetting is that the global growth story, it is there. they just launched another 32 countries. >> maybe so, jeff, but i've been hearing reports that china is really disappointing on the apple front. i know from my own experience of trying to buy a phone recently ten sales people, none would sell me the iphone five, just about image and hype and relative to nokia, they are backed by microsoft. are you going to real want to bet against microsoft, at least in the near term. i think we need to see. >> i'll give you that, but there's a lot of buzz with that, and to disagree even more so you saw the initial chinese sales at 2 million. launched another 32 countries.

look at the way apple is traded, abigail, just a market sentiment, truly like the new vix. >> i think the way that -- the way apple is trading really reflects the fact that investors are catching up to the fundamentals, that apple has just been a golden story for so long. >> couldn't disagree more. the forward 2013 pe, estimates of a 3g or 3m. >> apple could potentially look rich and the double top, failure rate is 11% after being confirmed to. me that's a very strong pattern. i really think that you downside to the 331 level but probably below 400 >> i hate to interrupt. this is so much fun. pencils down, everybody. i hate to be the guy to end it all, but i have to at this point. out of time. good stuff. thank you both for joining us. >> thank you. happy new year. >> that was great. >> that was good.

>> okay. the dow is only down by 34 points now, and it was down below 13,000 earlier on today, but here's the thing. can he rise above? maryland representative andy harris on his vote to vote against any measure that raiss s revenue without ten times spending cuts as well and what kay bailey hutchison has to say about the ever closer, ever creeping fiscal cliff. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 this morning, i'm going to trade in hong kong. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 after that, it's on to germany. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 then tonight, i'm trading 9500 miles away in japan. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 with the new global account from schwab, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i hunt down opportunities around the world tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 as if i'm right there. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and i'm in total control because i can trade tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 directly online in 12 markets in their local currencies.

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. welcome back. just joining us, stocks well off the lows of the session today. the dow more than 100 points off its intraday low on word of the house getting set to reconvene sunday evening. mary thompson is joining us here at the big board with some of the latest. when the news came out about that, mary, you could just sense the excitement on the floor here >> reporter: know. i guess hope springs eternal, bill. been talking throughout the day that the markets finally had a bit of a reality check that we wouldn't get a keel on the fiscal cliff. how quickly that sentiment changed because the minute the news broke that the house would

reconvene sunday at 6:30 and go all the way through january 2nd the markets, as you mentioned, turned around. we've trimmed the losses in the stock market. the vix has spiked which we've been speaking about today as well and has been capped as well. as mentioned, the dow recovering more than 100 points. let take a look at some of the dow movers. we had all 30 of the dow components trading in the red, but we have seen a turnaround in a couple of them, most notably microsoft and walmart and continued weakness alcoa, cisco and jpmorgan. even the vix, as i mentioned earlier, has retreated earlier today and moved above the 20 level. first time it's done so and it's pulled back once again on the news that the house reconvenes on sunday. investigators are looking for a deal, maybe not a big one but a small one to help avoid the fiscal cliff. >> back to you very much, mary.

four more days to the deadline. can a deal get done. congressman harris joining us now from baltimore. i'm going to talk about your plan in a moment, sir, but let me ask you about the word that we got in the last hour about the house reconvening sunday night. can you shed some light on any significance that may have. what have you heard? should we get our hopes up for sunday evening, or not? >> just got a conference call an hour ago with the speakership and leadership and that's only to get ready for anything coming over to the senate. the senate usually takes a couple of days to pass a bill. haven't even started working on one so the earliest they could have something over to the house would be sunday and the leadership will give its members 48 hours notice tomorrow and get us back in town sunday night. >> are you hearing that the senate's working on something that could come your way by

then? >> there's a rumor that the president has taken mrmr. boehne mr. boehner's plan "b" and added unemployment insurance. i'm sure the senate will work on the bill we send them in august and amend it if they like and give us something else to work on. >> you've already put out there what you're willing to go with. want massive spending cuts, ten times the revenue increase but at the same time to get a deal done what level are you willing to compromise? >> the president's first deal was $5 in taxes for every spending cut. i think we should start the negotiate at $10 spending cuts like discussed in the presidential debates and we'll get somewhere to the middle. >> what tax increases would you consider? >> is between $3, $4, $5-1 ra o

ratio. we've got a debt ceiling discussion that needs to go on before march and control our debt to gdp ratio. wee have to. >> speaker boehner made it clear that he would support or offer a tax increase on those americans making a million or more. who you support that? >> i think it would have to be coupled with some meaningful tax reform. i know that the bill he had proposed would have v made the a.m.t. tax patch purpose and those are xhenkful. i'll still hike to see more spending cuts. >> what does the president need to do to get you to virtually come to the people and vote yes. the helicopter has to get off

the platform since the election, solving or debt and deficit problem knows that you can't cole of our debt problem before it is not faeblible. >> the president arrived at 3310:00 am and made calls to the house and senate leadership as the negotiations continued. do you sense, sir, there is a period of compromise, where nobody was talking and everybody was holding the ground firmly? do you have a greater sense of comp moise as we into -- the speaker said the president didn't next any dale or the compromise so i ge he'll take that up in the shat, hopefully

vote for it. >> part part of the problem last week was the conservative wing of the party that i put you in for plan "b," and it was seening a something of a mutiny against john boehner at that point. so i'ming what is do you feel the support think of wing of the part is rhettest to president the measure? >> the this the has to stop a theso threat at the first motion of a pours bill and there were members in the house unwilling to vote on a bill that the president said he's going to veto. the house passes a bill. the senate passes a bill. if they are not the same. the house and senate work it out and send it to the president p.the president is interjecting himself way too early and, again, at a 5-1 ratio of taxes to spending cuts, it's just not going to work in the house.

>> congressman, would you rather see us cover over the cliff and take the dlil. >> we've done retroactive changes before and can do them again. we've got to get this right, not quick, and getting it right means we control our debt-to-gdp ratio and reinstill confidence in the markets showing that america is willing to solve its debt and deficit problem. >> so fixated on the december 31 deadline. a clock running for days here. what's your realistic in your view, knowing what you know at this point, assuming that there can be a compromised of some kind. what is a more expected.

>> i think it's possible that we expend the rats, if not all the baits, but it's possible we if into the second and third week of jer and get everything right. the president would have to announce that the payroll tax withholding tables stay the same, and just, again, take the time to get this done right, not get it done quick. we have a huge fiscal mess. got a debt and deficit issue, debt-to-gdp issue way too high, approaching european levels, and we've got to solve it. >> such a pity that is it has to go down to the weather. >> my pleasure. >> the market is senting a happy new year. but now it's down just 16

points. >> feels like we're on thin as i aid with some so are you pouring your money into seconds sis no way. outdorg kay bailey hutchison is with us. kwoind out if she thinks there's room for a deal after the house reconvenes on sunday. stay tuned. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro.

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and there's your green, the doug, s&p and even the s&p are now all slightly in the green now. what happened here as, of course, the dow was down earlier today by nearly 150 points, and then we got the news during "street signs," our show before this, that the house of representatives are going to come back on sunday night and reconvene at 6:30 p.m. that, of course, has helped those stocks reverse course, and we're now moving to the upside. just very, very slightly to see whether or not that holds all the way until the close. commodities are also making a comeback after posting earlier losses today. let's find out more on that with bertha coombs at the nymex. >> hi. nymex crude settling slightly

lower. we'll get the weekly inventory numbers tomorrow delayed because of the christmas holiday. the expectation survey is looking for a drawdown of 2 million barrels of crude. when it comes to the products which are stronger today, the strongest part of the energy complex, looking for distillates to be down 350,000 barrels and a build of 350,000 barrels. gasoline prices were up 4% and nat gas, that will be the first one out at 10:30 tomorrow morning. we're expecting about a 76 billion cubic foot drawdown. seasonally lower and nat gas, look at that chart. under pressure of late. it's going to have its first positive year in five years and a pretty good one, matching a performance we've seen in stocks, the best in the energy patch. back to you. >> thank you so much. we just got word that the senate republican leader mitch mcconnell will be going before

cameras shortly so that could be market-moving as well. we'll wait to see what that is. >> when he speaks, we'll bring him to you. flows into stocks-based mutual and exchange traded funds have posted 8 billion and bonds, on the other hand, have taken less than 1 billion. a bit of a rotation going on here. should investors be putting money to work in equities despite today's selloff? >> the battle of stocks versus bond. with us cnbc's jeff cox and kathy jones from charles schwab. waiting to see what the ten-year note is doing. it's come back sharply now with the buying of stocks here. i mean, there is this either/or going on right now, safety vers versus risks, right? >> doing this all year long, news about the economy or settlement of the fiscal cliff issue, the bond market sells off

a little bit and the market rallies. here we are again. hope springs eternal. >> let's say we get a deal in the near term, some sort of a framework deal. does that mean we'll see rates on the treasury yield curve rise appreciably, in other words, we'll sell off on the bond market. >> the initial reaction will be relief and risk assets, selloff in treasuries, and keep in mind any deal that we get is probably going to mean more austerity, not less, higher taxes and less spending in 2013 and 2014, and ultimately that's good for the bond market. it's not a bad thing for the bond market. >> do you agree, jeff cox? >> i agree with the notion that, of course, we're at mercy of the fiscal cliff talks, and i do think that the near term picture for equities is not looking very good because anybody who has any faith that these guys are going to get a deal done within the next couple of days i think is kidding themselves, as we've been kidding ourselves for the past couple of months. i worry about the bond picture in general simply because of the duration risk. i think, you know, the fund flow

things that you talked about earlier, very important. we've seen the rush into bonds. i think that's coming to an end. equities and the fed pushing you there and the fed will get its way. >> very have to cut it short and signals we'll hear from mitch mcconnell soon. i'll see you coming up in a little bit on countdown, kathy, and jeff, we'll see you a little bit later as well. a quick break and then come back and senate republican leader mitch mcconnell is set to talk to reporters. maybe we'll get more ideas and light shed on what's going on in washington on the fiscal cliff. more after this. stay tuned.

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ten minutes left in the trading session. here, if you're just joining us once again, a breaking story out of washington. seemingly hopeful story. the house announcing it will reconvene sunday evening. bring everybody back at that time and presumably to consider some deal that may come out of the senate at that point. whether or not that happens, the

market is not waiting to see the whites of their eyes. the dow was down 150 points at the low of the session and now we're down just 15 points. the dow was positive moments ago. >> really was, and the volatility index, aka the wall street fear gauge, was above 20 earlier on this morning for the first time in many months. it's now 19.22. obviously a little bit of fear coming out of market. let's get more of what's going on in the markets and what's going on in terms of traders feelings about the hope of sunday night. laura myers is from dme securities. what did you think and what did you do when you heard about the house reconveneing? >> you have to realize how event-driven this market really is. everyone is walking on eggshells about what's really going to happen. you saw the news this morning after mr. reid spoke and the market continued to sell off

pretty strongly because of that pessimistic view. as soon as there was optimism coming out, the meeting on sunday, had the rally. everyone has their cards off the table. when they hear the news, throwing little pieces pack in and that's driving the market >> the market has been whipsawed. the comment from harry reid you referred to. he said it looked like we'd go over the cliff early on, but we've had so many conflicting events. here's mitch mcconnell, here's what he's having to say. >> it's harry reid i'm told. >> as soon as the votes are over and start debating those amendments tonight. we would really like to get as many, much of that debate out of the night tonight as possible so we can start voting at a reasonably early time tomorrow. the debate today has been stimulating and very thorough and good and we hope,ation understand it, there are three amendments we'll vote on

tonight. that will still leave senator wyden's amendment that we'll worry about taking care of that tomorrow sometime. madam president, i ask unanimous consent that at 5:30 any remaining debate time on the amendments be yield back and the senate will vote on the penny amendments, that there be two minutes divided equally between all votes and all shall be ten minutes. >> procedural that they are doing right now. gotten indications that maybe mitch mcconnell is speaking. wanted to hear what he had to say. harry reid put a wet blanket on things and when we got word out of the house, things came pack. >> the biggest take away from all of this and what we've seen over the last couple of months. just shows me a lot of people

are not fully invested or out of the market. because of the voluntarily and the news changing dey to dey. they have kept the cards off the table. >> any way to make any money right now? >> sure, but if you have the ability to have a long-term outlook you have a lot of the opportunities. sitting back and waiting for the selloffs, intraday for today, waited this morning and had prices set, determining where you'd feel comfortable to get in, you would have a tidy little profit. >> day trading hike that is very, very difficult to do. we may still hear from mitch mcconnell. see if we can get a hint of his expectations for the possibility of any deal, and we'll come back

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okay. another one of those days. three minutes left. here's a snapshot of the day. here was the selloff on the consumer confidence number. here's mitch mcconnell on the floor of the senate. let's see if he says anything. >> i'm a little frustrated at the situation we find ourselves in, and the last night president obama called myself and the speaker and maybe others from hawaii and asked if there was something we could do to avoid the fiscal cliff. i would say we're frustrated because we've been asking the president and the democrats to work with us on a bipartisan agreement for months. literally for months, a plan that would simplify the tax code and shrink the deficit, protect the taxpayers and grow the economy. democrats consistently rejected those offers. the president chose instead to spend his time on the campaign

trail. this was even after he got re-elected and congressional democrats sat on their hands. now republicans have bent over backwards. we stepped way, way out of our comfort zone. we wanted an agreement, but we had no takers. the phone never rang, and so now here we are five days from the new year, and we might finally start talking. democrats have had an entire year to put forward a balanced bipartisan proposal, and if they had something to fit the bill, i'm sure the majority leader would have been able to deliver the votes the president would have needed to pass it here in the senate, and we wouldn't be in this mess, but here we are once again at the end of the year staring at